Michelle Bauman joined the Lutherans For Life team on June 1, 2019. Formerly a middle and high school teacher at Lutheran schools in Indiana, Michelle now serves as LFL’s national Y4Life and YA For Life Director where she helps young people from preschool through college (and beyond!) to learn about life issues and how to address them from a Gospel-motivated perspective. She and her team carry out this work through conferences, retreats, school visits, and the creation of life-affirming resources. (Check them out at y4life.org and yaforlife.org!) Michelle also supports the building and maintaining of Y4Life Teams on high school and college campuses across the nation. When not presenting, writing, or planning the next Y4Life or YA For Life event, Michelle loves gardening, taking long walks, traveling, cooking, and spending time with her husband, sons, and daughter-in-love. She lives in Columbus, Indiana, with her husband, Pastor Doug Bauman, and attends St. Paul Lutheran Church, Clifty, where he serves as pastor. 

An Unapologetic Apology for Life  
This presentation will demonstrate what a clear and faithful Christian apologetic for life might look like. It moves from shared cultural convictions about human worth, to a simple moral explanation of why life is sacred, and finally to the Christian confession that God Himself entered human life at every stage. The aim is to form Christians who can speak about life with clarity, confidence, and charity.
 
BIO: Adam Francisco is Director of Academics at 1517. He served for nearly two decades as Professor, Dean, and Assistant Provost in the Concordia University System. He earned his DPhil from the University of Oxford and has written extensively on Christian apologetics, Reformation history, and Christian-Muslim relations. He and his wife live in Wheaton, Illinois, with their four children and serve as foster parents to neglected and abused children. They are members of Bethany Lutheran Church in Naperville, and Adam serves on the board of Lutherans for Life. 

"In this presentation, Dr. Fenske will take you through the Scriptures to show why every life is valuable to God and to us. He will also describe what it means to have a Gospel-motivated approach to life and why this is important when speaking about life issues." 

BIO: The Rev. Dr. Aric Fenske has served as the Executive Director of Lutherans For Life since May of 2025. Prior to that, he served as a parish pastor in rural Wisconsin for 14 years. While he is passionate about all life issues, he is particularly interested in adoption and end of life ethics. Dr. Fenske and his wife, Marie, have four daughters, Madison, Alexis, Hailee, and Marta, along with two grandsons, James and Rustyn. He earned his Master of Divinity and Doctor of Ministry, with a focus on preaching, from Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, IN.